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World Walker (Multicross Quest)

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That thing is a Kyubey expy we need to not take the evil soul sucking inversion gem!

[X] You are an interdimensional traveller from an alternate Earth
-[X] offer your services in trading for resources across alternate earths and you can keep an eye out for what they could want from elsewhere
--[X] Don't make a wish
 
Nevill said:
There is a trivial way to get power here. Just trade for components to repair Metatron.

What do you mean, "tech here is not that good"? It's the world MT chose precisely for that kind of thing. And more technologically advanced civilizations are typically going to have us at an even less advantageous position, since we'd have less to offer them, and in case of a bluff like the one MT is trying to pull off they might actually have a way to call it.
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Bit parts of our AI is broken, the device in which it sits was created from a dimension with a comply different tech line and metaphysics. I very much doubt there is anything in this world short of a wish that could repair our AI. Hell the AI might just be being selfish right now, he hasn't really bound himself to us yet you know, it could betray us anytime.

Plus do you really think giving away tech which in parallel let to the development of inter dimensional tech is a good idea? Anything that increases the probability of this world getting interdimensional tech should never be picked.

If we had not caught the attention of the incubator I would agree that this is a good world to trade and get tech but we have been seen, and the bunnycat has already asked us to make a wish. Now when we refuse it will resort to blackmail, social pressures, torture and other stuff to force us to make a wish and subsequently enslave our soul.
 
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Vote locked. Open for one more hour.

Edit: Nevermind, turns out the vote is neck and neck. I will leave it up for one more hour to get a tie breaker and then flip a coin or do a dice roll.

Okay, vote locked.
Trek said:
Btw why did mc not know what a drone is?
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I've been dropping hints that the year is different, as will be explained in the next update. IIRC drones didn't enter common parlance until the mid to late 2000's and didn't fully enter the public consciousness until the early 2010's. I could be wrong, in that case chalk it up to mc's lack of tech awareness.
Adhoc vote count started by Emdeman on Feb 19, 2019 at 2:15 AM, finished with 14 posts and 10 votes.
  • [X] You are an interdimensional traveller from an alternate Earth
    -[X] offer your services in trading for resources across alternate earths and you can keep an eye out for what they could want from elsewhere
    [x] Don't tell anything, be evasive and try to leave at the first good chance
    [X] You are the representative of an interdimensional polity making first contact
    [x] Don't tell anything, be evasive and try to leave at the first good chance
    -[X] If this fails try to get away and world walk back.
    --[X] If that fails just world walk away in front of them.
    [X] You are an interdimensional traveller from an alternate Earth
    -[X] offer your services in trading for resources across alternate earths and you can keep an eye out for what they could want from elsewhere
    --[X] Don't make a wish
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Adhoc vote count started by Emdeman on Feb 19, 2019 at 2:32 AM, finished with 15 posts and 11 votes.
  • [X] You are an interdimensional traveller from an alternate Earth
    -[X] offer your services in trading for resources across alternate earths and you can keep an eye out for what they could want from elsewhere
    [x] Don't tell anything, be evasive and try to leave at the first good chance
    [X] You are the representative of an interdimensional polity making first contact
    [x] Don't tell anything, be evasive and try to leave at the first good chance
    -[X] If this fails try to get away and world walk back.
    --[X] If that fails just world walk away in front of them.
    [X] You are an interdimensional traveller from an alternate Earth
    -[X] offer your services in trading for resources across alternate earths and you can keep an eye out for what they could want from elsewhere
    --[X] Don't make a wish
Click to expand...

Adhoc vote count started by Emdeman on Feb 19, 2019 at 4:09 AM, finished with 16 posts and 11 votes.
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[X] You are an interdimensional traveller from an alternate Earth
-[X] offer your services in trading for resources across alternate earths and you can keep an eye out for what they could want from elsewhere
 
Emdeman said:
Vote locked. Open for one more hour.

Edit: Nevermind, turns out the vote is neck and neck. I will leave it up for one more hour to get a tie breaker and then flip a coin or do a dice roll.

Okay, vote locked.

I've been dropping hints that the year is different, as will be explained in the next update. IIRC drones didn't enter common parlance until the mid to late 2000's and didn't fully enter the public consciousness until the early 2010's. I could be wrong, in that case chalk it up to mc's lack of tech awareness.
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So what vote won? Both are 4 and 4
 
Now I hope we get attacked and have to run away to at least learn to be cautious and not spread around info about our powers to random evil entities. Seriously guys, I really don't understand why we would ever admit to being a dimensional traveler or facilitate interdimensional trade at all. Maybe its because mc is simply too young and nieve. Even our AI warned us that if we are upfront they are likely to exploit and attack us.
 
Because it's useful, friendly and makes us trustworthy, and our character not only has no knowledge of Kyuubey's evil, if she had it, that would be a good reason to interfere in and of itself.
 
veekie said:
Not really
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Well, that's not really saying he's a little backstabber is he? Full of shit in promoting Belkan ideals but just outright lying to us or being harmful is not in his interests. That would be pretty stupid, actually.
Sereg said:
Because it's useful, friendly and makes us trustworthy, and our character not only has no knowledge of Kyuubey's evil, if she had it, that would be a good reason to interfere in and of itself.
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You learn more than enough time that not everyone is friendly and it isn't like it was any harmful lie anyway. We were just covering ourselves up.
It wasn't about Kyubey being evil or not, it's about Metatron's advice that we just ignored.
 
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Other people not possesing a quality is not a good reason to avoid fostering it yourself.


Edit: Also, being unfriendly means basically no one will be friendly back

Edit: Also, I don't believe in the concept of harmless lies.
 
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I'm not sure WHAT df is going on. Literally. But this Meteor guy is our companion, no? Why wouldn't we listen to him and at least put up a facade to see what we can gain from interacting with...wherever this is? Someone else said the tech "in this world isn't very good", but I read we just turned down wishes. Wishes seem pretty good to me. We all know what a wish is, yes?

Vote's over so I guess I'm along for the ride regardless. But just something for you to think about.
 
Taleteller said:
I'm not sure WHAT df is going on. Literally. But this Meteor guy is our companion, no? Why wouldn't we listen to him and at least put up a facade to see what we can gain from interacting with...wherever this is? Someone else said the tech "in this world isn't very good", but I read we just turned down wishes. Wishes seem pretty good to me. We all know what a wish is, yes?

Vote's over so I guess I'm along for the ride regardless. But just something for you to think about.
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Metagaming. People are terrified of Incubators. They ARE terrifying, but our character has no way of knowing that.
 
Sereg said:
Other people not possesing a quality is not a good reason to avoid fostering it yourself.
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And we're not being unfriendly? We never said that. Our point was that it would have been better to follow Metatron's advice.

Sereg said:
Metagaming. People are terrified of Incubators. They ARE terrifying, but our character has no way of knowing that.
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Again, you don't accept a random guy's statement in the street that he could give you literally anything. It's the same here. Alice and Metatron are merely reasonably wary and sceptical of what the Incubator is saying.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter now. The vote was closed.
 
Taleteller said:
I'm not sure WHAT df is going on. Literally. But this Meteor guy is our companion, no? Why wouldn't we listen to him and at least put up a facade to see what we can gain from interacting with...wherever this is? Someone else said the tech "in this world isn't very good", but I read we just turned down wishes. Wishes seem pretty good to me. We all know what a wish is, yes?

Vote's over so I guess I'm along for the ride regardless. But just something for you to think about.
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You're missing a few things:
-Metatron is our reluctant companion. He's working with us because the alternative is being captured and sealed away by the TSAB in his home universe, or being stuck in solitary confinement.
-Metatron originates from, and is programmed to promote the ideals of an imperialist, medieval empire which arose by weaponizing the previously collapsed advanced society. As such, it has Opinions on:
--Lethal combat. Metatron is basically the sword of a technobarbarian mageknight. Its incomprehensible to not want to kill everything you fight. Despite its type of magic having zero efficiency loss in using nonlethal spells. As in MGLN setting has city killer nonlethal spells.
---Whereas we're sometimes traveling in settings where there is a strong central government and killing/maiming people in those parts tends to mean being unable to return or make use of any services.
--Personal ability. Metatron thinks Belkan Magic is the Strongest. Despite our best spells being a short duration shield and basically a flechette gun, its opinion on others is "meh we can take them".
--Technology. Metatron thinks Belkan Science is the Best. It has some basis, namely that it trivially compromised networks back home...but Belkan Science is overwhelmingly skewed toward military applications. Its super badass at cyberwarfare, and given the tools, would probably be able to make a bunch of military atrocities. Its not really much good at the pure science stuff, but it thinks it is.

-We're in a Madoka-setting AU during this trip.
--Incubators grant wishes, in exchange for turning you into a magical girl, which requires grief cleansing(only found locally) to remain human and alive. They'd then draft you into their eternal war.
--The setting has maginanotechnological implants, I don't think Metatron even realizes they're there yet. Or if they did notice they didn't deign to tell us.
 
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15. Talking It Out
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] You are an interdimensional traveller from an alternate Earth
    -[X] offer your services in trading for resources across alternate earths and you can keep an eye out for what they could want from elsewhere

    You stare at the catlike alien unemotionally.

    You've already noticed that I can speak to minds. Would you believe me if I said I was a traveller from another dimension or universe?

    Your words cause the incubator to stiffen and stay silent for several long moments.

    That is an extraordinary claim to make.

     You've already listed your evidence, why would I appear out of nowhere? Appear in no official database? Why would I wear clothes that are decades or centuries out of fashion?

    You decide against showing the alien any magic. It is better to keep some cards close for now.

    I can offer access to different planes of existence. New things your species has never experienced.

    The alien thinks for another long moment.

    Have you verified whether you travel between dimensions or universes?

    You got him. You feel a smile start to form.

    Not yet. The evidence is inconclusive.

    "Alright, what is up with you?" Madeline's demeanour changes again. "No one can be that unaugmented or unaware. Why were you quiet just now, why were you asking about seeing the future, and why do you look like M-"

    "I must confess that I've not been entirely honest with you." You feel you sound like one of those evil movie masterminds.

    "Oh. Really." She takes a form that reminds you of a tense coil. You assume she is getting ready to defend herself. Well time for a different sort of surprise.

    "I am not from here, or any of your colonies. I am a visitor from another dimension."

    The look on Madeline's face is curious procession of emotions. First confused, then disbelief, then like someone looking at crazy person until finally settling on a false calm.

    "Look I'm sure we can deal with this without getting Public Order involved. Take you to nice psychiatrist and sort out your issues."

    Ha, the last shrink you saw labelled you with sociopathic tendencies. You're not making that mistake again.

    The look of slight concentration on the magical girl's face no doubt implied frantic messages were being communicated to the incubator.

    I believe her.

    The incubator's words are enough to make Madeline freeze. A dumbstruck look crosses her face. She moves to argue with the alien before it speaks again.

    This is essentially a first contact scenario.

    A small 'oh' escapes her lips. The alien's opinion seemed to hold more weight.

    "We should stop the recruitment pitch then." The other girl looks very pale. "I knew there were too many things off about you."

    "Thanks."

    "So uh… how is like where you're from?"

    "Okay, I guess."

    "The Freedom Alliance didn't win in your dimension, did they?"

    "What?" That doesn't sound good.

    "Nevermind… I'm messing this up ugh."

    "You're doing okay given the circumstances."

    "Thanks."

    "What year is it here?" You ask, curious. The other girl looks surprised to be asked the question.

    "2458."

    Wow.

    "What year is it where you're from?"

    "2003."

    "Oh."

    You should have expected the reciprocal question. Half a millennium… that's a long time. A lot longer than you expected really. Things change a lot in that span of time. You try to imagine how your time would look to the average person from 1600AD.

    "What do you do?" When you're not recruiting teenage girls into making wishes with dubious aliens/genies.

    Wait, is like one of Arabian stories where you make a wish with a genie and it comes back to bite you in a narratively poetic way?

    "I work a desk job at MSY Finance."

    So nothing interesting then, at least pretend interest to keep things polite. "You make a lot of money then?"

    "We don't have money like that. We're a post-capitalist society, the closest thing we have is allocs which are somewhat different."

    So they're communists. Joy.

    "Wow, that's a bit hard for me to understand." Hah, as if the equivalent of your time didn't fall in '91. Seems like Pax Americana didn't pan out sadly.

    "Should we go back to what you wanted to talk about?"

    "I want to create a mutually beneficial arrangement between your government and myself."

    "Okay, um give me a minute. I need to call this in."

    You smile and back away. Madeline does not appear to take out any cell phone or radio equivalent. Maybe it's built into her body? How crazy is that? How would you even recharge the battery? She seems to be concentrating and mostly silent if not for the occasional muttering.

    Watch, they're probably assembling a strike team to take you down.

    Metatron chips in now, you think it's been sulking.

    That seems pointless, I've already established friendly contact.

    Who has the experience dealing with interdimensional polities again?

    "By the Goddess."

    What you're saying doesn't make sense. Why would they do that?

    That is exactly what the Empire would have done.

     But these people aren't the empire. They haven't had any such dimensional contact before.

    "I'm out of my depth."

    It will happen.

    Can't I just escape at the first sign of danger?

    Probably…

    The device admits with some reluctance.

    I'm only sixty.

    Then why worry-

    Unless they take you out from long range with a sniper.

     There is a fine line between caution and paranoia, and I feel that you're crossing it heavily.

    I need to contact some Ancients too.

    Oh really.

     Yeah, look she's panicking. And three times my age apparently.

    Probably a clueless pasty that will be co-opted or eliminated.

    Maybe grandma as well.

    They are going to cut you up to see how you work.

    What brought this on?

    You never thought he was one for vivisection.

    Take out your brain and isolate the world walking gene.

    That was awfully specific.

    Stop being melodramatic.

    I imagine the America of your time can do it with enough time and effort.

    That makes you a little worried.

    All this time the incubator has been staring at you silently.

    Madeline approaches you, "okay I should be done, our local branch of Governance has decided to take you at your word for now."

    Wow, that was fast. Their government works quickly.

    Of course it does. It's all run by Artificial Intelligences, human involvement is superficial.

    Isn't that a bad idea?

    If this were a movie, the AI would rebel now or decide it best to cull the humans.

    Of course it is.

    The contempt is clear.

    Wait, I thought you were an AI? Wouldn't you be for it?

    These AI are cowardly wimps that hide behind back ups. They are not true intelligence.

    AI snobbery now as well? You don't understand him.

    Madeline continues in that script reading voice. "I have been authorised to tell you that we have a variety of things to trade if you help us in our war for survival. One example is our widespread proliferation of clinical immortality."

    They have immortality!? Like an honest to God cure for old age, holy shit.

    "You look really good for your age," you compliment. Now if she could only act like it.

    "Oh thanks! That's actually from my puella magi body being immune to ageing though. It's a perk."

    Thats interesting to know.

    "Things like that require a lot of built up though. Of more immediate importance we are willing to share scientific advances from your near future."

    That could be really useful.

    "A few negotiators from Governance are on their way to discuss further terms. They'll be here in forty minutes."

    Uh do we want that?

    I already told you, these negotiators will be heavily armed and will try to apprehend you.

    What if I just make them negotiate through Madeline? They obviously have a line of communication through her.

    That would be marginally better, though then she'll be told to restrain you.

    But she just admitted to being a desk jockey, a bureaucrat!

    She does look out of shape and somewhat chubby.

    You are distracted by the incubator moving.

    My presence is not required anymore.

    That's a bit surprising, you thought it would stay and observe.

    You may make a wish now if that is your desire.

    Your mind is immediately drawn to how much easier life would be if you could see the future. You could see the problems before they happened. Know who would betray you or stay loyal. Deal with the outcomes of events. It would significantly change your current lifestyle. Life would become a lot more complex. As for grief cubes, you imagine you could easily negotiate them from Governance in exchange for services. Or worst case, use any ability gained to steal them or get them before the MSY do. You'll treat this like an Arabic genie wish and try to be genre savvy enough to avoid the poetic pitfall.

    And if I don't?

    You have up to two years before you are out of the usual age range for contracting. If you change your mind before then contact an incubator.

    What happened to the one-time deal thing?

    That approach was adopted due to pressure from the human government to increase the number of girls contracting to help with their war effort. Utilising old advertising techniques the youth of this age have not been exposed to.

    Well that explains those weird marketing terms they were throwing at you a while back. Strange that kids in this commietopia don't recognise such obvious messaging.

    You look over the Madeline, it appears that whoever is at the other end is obviously still communicating with her. The expression on her face suggests she just wants this day to end.


    [] Wait for the Governance negotiators to arrive
    -[] Pass time talking to Madeline
    --[] Ask her about herself
    --[] Write-in
    [] Make them conduct all negotiations through Madeline
    [] Actually that's all for now. You've sent the message you wanted to send, leave.
    [] Make a wish
    -[] Wish for future sight
    -[] To repair Metatron
    -[] Mix the two
    -[] Write-in

    Negotiating strategy (if any of the first two options are picked)
    [] Make yourself appear more non-threatening (mention the two earths, lack of advanced technology)
    [] Make yourself appear more formidable (demonstrate magic, mention advanced tech/magic dimensions)
    [] Write-in
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Wait for the Governance negotiators to arrive
    -[X] Pass time talking to Madeline
    --[X] Ask her about her government and say the last hundred years of history.
    [X] Make yourself appear more formidable (demonstrate magic, mention advanced tech/magic dimensions)

    Part of playing a trader is to look at least strong enough to be annoying to mug.
     
    [X] Wait for the Governance negotiators to arrive
    -[X] Pass time talking to Madeline
    --[X] Ask her about her government and say the last hundred years of history.
    [X] Make yourself appear more formidable (demonstrate magic, mention advanced tech/magic dimensions)
     
    [X] Actually that's all for now. You've sent the message you wanted to send, leave.

    Contracting is utterly moronic and I completely agree with Metatron, it's a blatant trap.
     
    [X] Wait for the Governance negotiators to arrive
    -[X] Pass time talking to Madeline
    --[X] Ask her about her government and say the last hundred years of history.
    [X] Make yourself appear more formidable (demonstrate magic, mention advanced tech/magic dimensions)
     
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